Even though President Donald Trump had telegraphed his intent months in advance to steal the 2020 election, by planning to get judges, state legislators and/or the Electoral College to illegitimately declare him the winner—laying out a pretext by lying about widespread voter fraud—corporate media were slow to accurately convey the reality and significance of Trump’s election theft efforts. I’ve noted twice before (FAIR.org, 9/15/20, 11/5/20) that corporate media betrayed their journalistic responsibilities by refusing to report, outside the context of opinion columns, that Trump has been attempting a coup, despite all the plain evidence.
Yet in the past few days, it seems corporate media have decided to report on Trump’s attempts to subvert the election and overturn its results as a fact, not as a matter of opinion. Here are some recent headlines:
- Wall Street Journal (11/19/20): “Trump Broadens His Efforts to Overturn Election Outcome”
- New York Times (11/19/20): “Trump’s Attempts to Overturn the Election Are Unparalleled in US History”
- NPR (11/20/20): “The Growing Backlash Against Trump’s Efforts to Subvert the Election”
- Associated Press (11/20/20): “Trump Tries to Leverage Power of Office to Subvert Biden Win”
- Politico (11/21/20): “Trump Calls on GOP Legislatures to Overturn Election Results”
- CNN (11/22/20): “Trump’s Attempt to Steal the Election Unravels as Coronavirus Cases Surge”
To be clear, although coverage has improved to more accurately describe what’s going on in the US, the media failure to report the facts much earlier is inexcusable. Considering that corporate media ran op-eds (e.g., The Week, 8/11/20; USA Today, 8/16/20), letters to the editor (e.g., Washington Post, 8/21/20), stating the undeniable fact that Trump has been trying to steal the election months in advance, in addition to reporting on Trump’s subversion efforts in real time, they cannot credibly feign ignorance.
However, while corporate media appear to have stopped downplaying Trump’s election theft efforts for now, they have also run cover for the Republican Party’s complicity in enabling and actively assisting Trump’s efforts, as Trump cannot steal the election on his own.
The New York Times report “Who’s Going to Tell Him? Republicans Shy From Asking Trump to Concede” (11/10/20) employed the language one would use to describe family members unsure how to confront an embarrassing relative, rather than a major political party enabling election theft with its silence. The lackadaisical report described how neither major factions of the Republican Party—Trump’s “most ardent followers” who defend him “at all costs,” or the “tenuous, strained alliance with the rest, who share his agenda but often cringe privately at his language and tactics”—are “particularly well suited for the chore of trying to persuade Mr. Trump” to “step aside,” or to “stop spreading claims about the integrity of the nation’s elections that are contrary to considerable evidence.”
At other times, corporate media articles like Axios’ “The Electoral College Play” (11/11/20) reported on the Republican Party’s coup attempt as if it were a mere competitive sports strategy:
As the weaknesses of President Trump’s legal cases to overturn Joe Biden’s win become clearer, Republicans are talking more about the Electoral College — hinting at an extreme last-chance way for Trump to cling to power.
What we’re watching: In this long-shot scenario, Trump and his team could try to block secretaries of state in contested states from certifying results. That could allow legislatures in those states to try to appoint new electors who favor Trump over Biden.
When Trump’s “most ardent followers” like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stated in a press conference that “there will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration” in response to a question about whether the State Department is preparing to coordinate with an incoming Biden administration, corporate media didn’t report on Pompeo’s shocking remarks as if he was an accomplice to an attempt to overturn a democratic election:
- USA Today (11/10/20): “Despite Election Results Showing Biden Win, Pompeo Said He Expects ‘Transition to a Second Trump Administration’”
- NBC News (11/10/20): “’There Will be a Smooth Transition to a Second Trump Administration,’ Pompeo Claims”
- NPR (11/10/20): “Pompeo Promises ‘a Smooth Transition to a Second Trump Administration’”
- Politico (11/10/20): “Pompeo Promises ‘Smooth Transition to Second Trump Administration’ as World Leaders Congratulate Biden”
And when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, one of the highest-ranking Republican officials, stated that Trump is entitled to launch frivolous and fraudulent lawsuits, corporate media didn’t spell out the full significance of his statements—which amount to an insistence that elected officials have a right to resist being voted out of office:
- Washington Post (11/9/20): “After Biden Win, McConnell Backs Trump’s Legal Challenges to Election Results”
- Fox News (11/9/20): “McConnell Backs Trump Legal Fight in Election Results”
- CBS News (11/9/20): “2020 Daily Trail Markers: McConnell Takes Victory Lap and Backs Trump’s Refusal to Concede”
- Politico (11/9/20): McConnell-Led Republicans Hold Steady Against Trump Concession”
- New York Times (11/9/20): “Republicans Back Trump’s Refusal to Concede, Declining to Recognize Biden”
Why shouldn’t corporate media highlight McConnell and the rest of the Republican Party’s complicity in enabling Trump’s subversion, running headlines like “Republicans Support Trump’s Attempt to Subvert Election,” or “McConnell Endorses Trump’s Attempt to Overturn Election Results,” instead of functioning as stenographers? One possible explanation for this obfuscation is that corporate media seek to prop up the legitimacy of the Republican/Democrat duopoly in US electoral politics (which disenfranchises popular progressive ideas that threaten both major parties’ corporate donors), by maintaining the illusion of the Republican Party as a legitimate and normal political party.
It’s not just leftist political commentators like Noam Chomsky (Salon, 9/23/15) who characterize the Republican Party as a “radical insurgency” with views “off the spectrum of not only international opinion, but even relative sanity.” Even establishment political commentators like Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein from the American Enterprise Institute and Brookings Institution (Washington Post, 4/27/12) have claimed years ago that the Republican Party is “the core of the problem” for why Washington politics is so “dysfunctional”:
The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.
Thankfully, although one can still find infuriatingly passive headlines like the Times’ “Republicans in Congress Stay Largely in Line Behind Trump” (11/20/20), corporate media have recently begun to move in the direction of condemning the Republican Party’s enabling of Trump’s coup attempt, or at least highlighting their complicity:
- Associated Press (11/21/20): “Analysis: With Silence, GOP Enables Trump’s Risky Endgame”
- Washington Post (11/20/20): “Most Republicans Greet Trump’s Push to Overturn the Election With a Customary Response: Silence”
- Vanity Fair (11/16/20): “Republicans Suddenly Much Too Busy to Defend Trump’s Election Lies on TV”
While some may argue that the media refusal to describe Trump’s ongoing coup attempt as such is an insignificant semantic squabble because it doesn’t seem likely to happen at the moment, particularly now that the Trump administration has recognized President-Elect Joe Biden’s right to plan for a transition, it’s a mistake to think it won’t have any meaningful consequences simply because it won’t succeed.
Journalist David Sirota (Guardian, 11/12/20) pointed out that Trump and the Republican Party’s efforts are designed as much to “generate headlines as they are to win rulings and initiate prosecutions,” in order to convince public opinion that there is significant electoral fraud.
Vox founder Ezra Klein (11/7/20) pointed out that Trump is trying to create something
akin to an autocracy-in-exile, an alternative America in which he is the rightful leader, and he — and the public he claims to represent — has been robbed of power by corrupt elites.
This coup attempt, he writes,
has made clear that would-be autocrats have a path to power in the United States, and if they can walk far enough down that path, an entire political party will support them, and protect them.
A Morning Consult/Politico (11/9/20) found that 70% of Republicans don’t believe that the 2020 election was free and fair, which is a stark increase from the 35% of Republicans who believed so before the election. If enough Republicans are convinced that their electoral defeats can only be explained by Democrats cheating, this could potentially incite massive reactionary violence, led by an opportunist political party determined to maintain minority rule at any cost (Washington Post, 11/12/20). This is why it’s important for media to forcefully report and denounce these coup attempts in real-time.
Right on! The president has been acting treasonously by actively subverting constitutional law. The republican elected officials have been complicit in this. I am so heartened by the present aRTICLE AND WISH THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA WOULD ACT LIKEWISE. thEY, TOO, ARE COMPLICIT IN NOT CALLING tRUMP OUT FOR WHAT HE IS – A DICTATOR TRYING IN WHATEVER SCANDALOUS MODE TO SUBVERT THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE. hE OUGHT TO BE IN JAIL!
Which law has Trump been subverting. I’m all for punishment if he has broken a law. Please tell.
It’s pretty clear that there’s enough to charge him with Obstruction of Justice. The prima facie case is there; his defense is lack of intent and, in general, you make the defendant plead that case to a judge or jury.
You charged him with treason. How was he treasonous? Obstruction is not treasonous.
What did he do that is treasonous?
Ooooh prima facie. You know no more than anyone else. You have an opinion, so?
Obstruction of justice is not treasonous. Clinton committed treason when he was convicted of obstruction of justice? Which exact law did Trump break that is treasonous?
No, Obstruction of Justice isn’t treasonous. It’s still a crime. Last time I checked, there’s no special rule that says Trump can’t be convicted of of anything unless it’s treason.
When the fuck did I allege he committed treason? Cite it, please. The closest I’ve ever said is that trying to sell out the national security interests of the US (which he did by hinting that he’d hold up US aid to the Ukraine) for his own political interests (which he did by trying to get Ukraine to announce a Hunter Biden investigation so that their aid wouldn’t get held up) is “treason adjacent” and abuse of office. It’s not treason, but selling out the country’s interests so that he could get dirt on the relative of a likely political opponent is kinda close to it.
But he’s already been impeached for the Ukraine stuff; it’s hard to justify another prosecution for it– at least from a practical standpoint.
I was so happy to see this article because it is correct that this very real attempt for a coup has not been addressed as a serious threat … and time is running out. Fortunately, The View did also discuss this on TV a day or so ago, so maybe people will start to wake up and demand action while there is still time.
Absolutely on target. Makes you wonder whose side corporate media is on.
Great article. It’s about time journalism in general demonstrate courage and report on the obvious and to not play to the distortions that have suckered them and diluted the integrity of media institutions for at least 4 years.
Yet another brilliant article, Joshua. Keep up the great work!
The corporate media usually treat these elections like some kind of sports competition rather than as the CRUCIAL CONTESTS they truly are to see whether the USA is going to be seriously engaged in solving catastrophic global warming and other environmental horrors, and poverty and financial ruination for hundreds of millions of people worldwide before/during/after this Covid pandemic, and other direly pressing issues.
Or whether it will just be “business as usual” cont’d by the duopoly of power-mad GOP henchmen and their corporatist DLC Democrat cronies from the Bill Clinton era onward.
It is a challenge to assimulate all of the recent events especially now with a 6-3 SCOTUS majority.
We have had so much tension and sighs of relief only to be followed with yet more tension.
It wasn’t such a big deal when all Hannity and Carlson had to talk about was Bangazi or Hilary’s Emails but now they are pushing for a total rebuke of democracy and the formula from the Totalitarian playbook is to claim they are defending democracy and fighting fraud.
It is not working but then again it is. Trump is the totalitarian the Republicans have dreamed of.
Will Biden bring back some shred of common decency or will the rift only get stronger? I think that he is not stiring the pot but the pot will keep stirring with the power coming from the extreem right.
There needs to be a clear break from the extreem right. Toomey would not be able to say what he is saying if he wanted to run again. That is the grip that the far right has on the party.
I wonder if the 6-3 can be brought to 5-4 if the State of Virginia (if it can prove jurisdiction through people in the state being invited there) or DC prosecutes Amy Coney Barrett for her Rose Garden event.
This story is fine, but it strikes me as a “dog bites man” account, and sometimes it is worth acknowledging the irony of the moment. Yeah, the Republican Party is in contempt of rules, laws and facts that threaten its perch, and yes the media was slow to get to calling 45’s enablers out for defending a legal right to delay and deny and make baseless claims.
But why not reference the four-year, full-bore media barrage of Russia, Russia, Russia that was just as baseless, but was done with zeal and aplomb, and questioned the legitimacy of an elected leader? What 45 and his supporters are doing is most likely payback for what the Democrats with total media collusion did for four years.
Russian interference in the 2016 was not as baseless as the current “election fraud” campaign: Russian were indicted for it, fer cryin’ out loud. The Trump campaign tried to meet with Russians to get dirt on Clinton and lied repeatedly about it.
It ain’t legitimate payback to burn down a courthouse after you’ve been convicted of something.
Thank you.
Indicted doesn’t mean anything. They knew none would come to the US for trial except one did challenge the indictment and the DOJ backed down. Nothing was proven.
No, indictment means there’s probable cause to believe a crime was committed and that the indicted entity committed it. Nothing was proven beyond a reasonable doubt, but indictment means a damn sight more that the current conspiracy theories being spouted by a conman and his crew of legal buffoons.
And then there’s the Mueller Report. And then there’s the committee reports that confirmed a Russian disinformation campaign.
But yeah… All that justifies the Trumpists burning the country to the ground because they can’t bring themselves to believe he lost. Fucking cultists the lot of ya.
You are wrong to believe that there was ever any evidence of real, meaningful interference in the 2016 elections by Russia. This is understandable because the lie was pervasive and repeated often. The initial charge was that the incriminating emails were hacked, and forensic, non-partisan experts proved that to be impossible. Yes, there were Russian bots on Facebook, but nobody can safely infer that they threw an election.
The simple fact is that Hilary and the Democrats lost a national election to a narcissistic con artist, and the Russian story was unleashed to deflect shame and responsibility. And the con artist scared the DC establishment professionals including Mueller. FAIR exists to expose the corrosive impact that money has on democracy, and this is a clear and severe lesson.
Oh so we’ve gone from “baseless claims” of Russian interference to “real meaningful interference”? Move the goalposts much?
Saying there was Russian interference was NOT a lie. It. Happened. The campaign attempted to meet with Russians to get Clinton dirt. The campaign repeatedly lied about it. That’s Russian interference; just because the campaign couldn’t pull it off didn’t mean that it didn’t happen. The Russian troll farms conducted a massive social media disinformation campaign. It. Happened. It doesn’t fucking matter if you can’t trace a vote being cast because of the disinformation– it’s still inter-fucking-ference.
Nobody advanced this lie to explain away a Clinton loss. For one thing, it’s not a fucking lie. For another thing, nobody who matters gives a shit why Clinton lost and nobody was calling for an election re-do.
You can’t reasonably suggest that what the Trumpists are advocating now– having courts overrule election results; having state legislatures pick their own elector stooges who will pick Trump despite how their state voted– is a legitimate retort for any (imagined) past sins of the Democratic party in 2016. It’s like if your neighbor’s kid throws his frisbee on your lawn and you think the proper response is to nuke the whole neighborhood from orbit.
I get that you despise the liar-in-chief, but if you believe that his campaign’s attempts to find dirt on Hilary amounts to proof that Russia interfered in the election, it explains your incapacity to recognize a completely false narrative that was cooked and served up by self-righteous “patriots” and apparatchiks and every voice of commercial media, at the behest of billionaires who own the lot of them.
Hilary’s people hired a firm in to find dirt on her opponent — it’s not illegal and goes on all of the time. General Michael Flynn was led to believe by James Comey that his conversations with a Russian diplomat were illegal, so Flynn lied and was indicted for lying. You are not living in a democracy, but rather an oligarchy that in which your choices are decided by money and voters are often suppressed. Happy Black Friday!
JohnO – exactly right. ‘ConsortiumNews.com’ has a long history of investigating the ‘Russia-gate’ allegations and has much supporting evidence indicating that it was almost entirely a Democratic campaign ploy. While no politically knowledgeable person doubts that the US & Russia (as well-as China & Israel, etc etc — all the major players) try to influence each other’s elections to some extent via propaganda, the idea that Russia’s minor efforts (whatever they might have been) played any significant role in the 2016 election are politically incorrect.
A fucking campaign ploy that didn’t become public information until long after the campaign was over, huh? Yeah, that makes a lot of fucking sense.
It doesn’t fucking matter if Russian interference played no significant role: it still fucking happened and the Trump campaign tried to meet with them to get the benefit. This isn’t some no-harm-no-foul hockey penalty here, fer fuck’s sake!
I made my initial comment precisely because, as exemplary as FAIR’s efforts are, too many readers think they are citing anomalies and not exposing systemic failure when commercial media accounts don’t comport with the facts.
It offends many folks’ sensibilities to hear that our government actively and murderously fears and fights sovereign people who seek to be democratic and open, but not capitalist. It shocks many to learn that American Exceptionalism is a myth that only the American public is served, and it is served up by commercial media upon which most Americans depend for their understanding of the world. The DP is no less committed to upholding the myth than the RP and the commercial media is owned by the same donors they represent.
From the “media as lap dog” perspective, this conduct is totally consistent. By 11/20/20, a significant portion of the Republican establishment had called for Trump to concede. This created enough legitimate controversy to provide cover for the mainstream media report on this topic. But, notice they also continued to cover the events in terms sympathetic to Trump. This way, if Trump succeeded in his coup, they would still be allowed to exist under his regime. And, if he failed, they could maintain that they fulfilled their constitutional responsibilities by exposing Trump’s attempt to overthrow America’s democracy. Spineless – yes – but consistent.
JohnO: “but if you believe that his campaign’s attempts to find dirt on Hilary amounts to proof that Russia interfered in the election… ”
_____________________________________________________________
WTF else is it then, ya moron? When foreign agents try to meet up with a campaign to give them dirt on a political opponent it is NOT JUST SOME FUCKING COINCIDENCE.
I am aware that Trump supporters are finding alternative forms of media that confirm their worldviews. Those alternative media are now a national security risk. They should be shut down with FARA or with the same dirty tricks Roger Stone espoused.
The next step is to end Trumpism once and for all. Facebook and Twitter should be obliged to force Trump supporters to read articles saying it’s a lie. Parler is probably a big FARA violation. I don’t know about MeWe but it needs to be brought to heel too.
Then it’s time to bring that 70% figure down. If people try to get cute and use proxies around the de-Trumpification, Visa/Mastercard don’t have to serve the cult. Telecom and ISP companies don’t have to serve the cult. Private water, electricyt, and tility companies don’t have to either. They don’t have to obey the First Amendment.
Do you work for the DNC, Joey? Trump lies pathologically, but if you believe the commercial media are neutral purveyors of truth, then you need to get a clue. If it wasn’t for alternative media that take no advertising and depend on readers’ support, we would all be the worse for it. The New York Times and Washington Post lie all the time about what our government does in Syria and Venezuela. All the time. A government with a 740 billion-dollar military budget and cannot find the funds to help the tens of millions of pandemic victims, gets no grief from its beloved reporters.
What do we know about NSA surveillance? It was printed in the Guardian, which got it directly from Edward Snowden, who has been living in exile ever since. Do we see commercial media demanding justice for him or Julian Assange?
If you get your news about Syria from commercial media, check out this alternative perspective:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ours_8ygO0A
“Facebook and Twitter should be obliged to force Trump supporters to read articles saying it’s a lie.” Nothing like the lefts use of force! Who again are the fascists?
Brilliant observations.
What a shame that all of them are simply common sense.
The spoiled rotten consumer who has been given so much choice now has truth in whatever flavor they want. Gluten free, wild raspberry swirl, double stuffed, as long as there’s a taste for it, there’s someone willing to supply it for a fee.
Fox started selling new Truth recently, with defections of actual news people like Shep Smith who could no longer stomach the hypocrisy and lies spun by the opinion hosts of his former network. There isn’t alternate truth. There’s only facts, and opinions but today opinions are being sold as facts.
But CNN is also guilty of this. Don Lemon will offer his opinions as facts quite often. The network will publish headlines of people just expressing opinion as if those opinions are facts.
We need an actual news source that doesn’t weigh in on the facts with editorialized takes. A fact network. Maybe that’s Reuters. It certainly isn’t the New York Times anymore. But a network that doesn’t lean towards any agenda other than relaying facts that no one can call fake would be a novel thing.
Of course that would mean not declaring someone a racist or sexist as that is a subjective thing. Some people actually think Abraham Lincoln was too racist and wanted his statues removed from public places. If the man who freed the slaves wasn’t woke enough in 1865, no one is good enough for these imbeciles.
We need to decipher what is subjective opinion and what is objective fact. Period. There shouldn’t be Facts Plus, or Facts Max, or Facts with add ons and premium packages. There should only be facts, separated from opinion channels.
Jesus H. Kansas, you call THAT impartial, objective reporting?
And I’m not even a Trump fan.
When did FAIR become a partisan propaganda organ for the Democratic party?
Color me disappointed and disgusted.
You just blew your credibility with me.
Another fear mongering article by Josh Cho. When Trump leaves the White House, will Josh Cho publish an apology article for his stoking the flames of fear? Will he be a coward and not publish an apology?
For fuck’s sake, it’s not fearmongering. Trump is actually saying “he won” and “the election was stolen” and he’s exhorting his dipshit cultist followers to take action. That. Is. Fucking. Happening.
He’s doing unimaginable harm to the county just by saying this shit and riling up his supporters. It’s not gonna be “no harm, no foul” when/if he leaves the White House on inauguration day. There’s no undoing this harm and you can’t just handwave it away by calling this fearmongering. And your dismissive reassurances– and by the way: what fucking special insight into Trump’s mind do you have that makes you think anyone should just trust you on this? a fucking Svengoolie mindreader, are ya?– that “Trump doesn’t mean it” are completely besides the point: he doesn’t have to mean it to be doing real harm here and now and in the future. And if he doesn’t mean it, then why the fuck does he keep saying this shit?
John “I’m going to throw down F bombs to show how cool I am. I’m really mad. This will prove. I will impress people with how angry I am by tossing out F bombs. I’m going to type a sentence and separate each word with a period.”
Trump is allowed to challenge an election. Nothing illegal about that. He’s allowed to state his opinion (1st amendment). Hillary talked about losing an election for four years. She’s allowed her opinion. Did you talk about the harm she was doing? Did you talk about the harm her campaign, sponsored dossier did? Crickets? I laughed at her, but I didn’t go around all angry and spewing hatred because she wouldn’t take ownership of the fact that the country disliked her.
I have the same insight into Trump’s mind that you and Josh have – none.
I would guess that he’s saying it because he believes it. You can attribute more nefarious motivations to him if you’d like.
You need to calm down. You might be more persuasive if you didn’t launch into tirades.
Fuck off. If you don’t like how I write, you don’t have to engage with me. I could give a shit about persuading you. Your well of excuses for Trump is fucking bottomless and I ain’t writing here for your the benefit of your cultist ass.
Oh, he’s allowed to spout BS? Great justification. You’re allowed to sit out on your front lawn in a blizzard wearing nothing but a bathing suit. It doesn’t make it a good idea. The asshole is ‘sposed to have the nation’s interests at heart– not his own whiny, pouty, temper-tantrum feelings.
I explained above how this is absolutely NOTHING like what Clinton or the Democrats did after she lost in 2016. Nothing like it! You find me one fucking case of Clinton’s unhinged supporters plotting to blow up the Philly convention center where the votes are being counted. You find me thing written by anyone whose opinion matters advocating the complete abandonment of democracy. You find me one Clinton surrogate who ran around whipping up a dipshit cultist fanbase with completely specious claims of fraud. It didn’t fucking happen.
This is what your justification boils down to… Trumpists: “Well, we didn’t like what the Dems did after the 2016 election, so we’re completely justified in threatening all sorts of illegal shit to overturn the election. We’re completely justified in whipping up our dipshit fanbase to the point of violence. And, even if we never follow through with any of our bluster, then the complete erosion of public confidence of the voting process and the chaos is acceptable collateral damage.” It’s fucking bullshit. At best, it’s arguing that the Dem’s wrong and the Trumpists’ wrong– two wrongs– make a right. At worst, it’s nuking your entire neighborhood from orbit because the neighbor’s kid threw a frisbee into your yard.
Oh, and by the way: A lot of the BS Trump is spouting is NOT opinion. A lot of it is just flat-out lies about election fraud that didn’t happen.
It is comical how much hate you have. It spews from your mouth. We can all see you with a vein popping out of your head as you type. You’re certainly a charmer.
Plotting to kidnap a governor or blow up a convention center is horrible and those people should be put in jail. We can find people on your side that are worse. How about the Hodgekinson (Democrat) who actually shot (not planned) representatives. Omar Mateen? I don’t hold your side accountable for those, but I guess that only goes one way.
Tim: We can find people on your side that are worse. How about the Hodgekinson (Democrat) who actually shot (not planned) representatives. Omar Mateen? I don’t hold your side accountable for those, but I guess that only goes one way.
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Yeah, it only goes one way because– and try to follow me here– the President is out there riling up these cultist dipshits to take action. Nobody on the Dem side of the aisle was exhorting any of their supporters to take any kinda terrorist action.
Yesterday, one of Trump’s legal team called for the death of the cybersecurity pro who dared contradict Trump about the integrity of the election. Seb Gorka called for Dr. Fauci’s head to be put on a pike. Your side can’t spew that kinda shit and reasonably argue it’s on par with anything any prominent Dem has said since like the Civil War.
And, again, if you don’t like my tone or think I have nothing but hate and vitriol, you’re free to fuck off and not engage with me. By the way: still waiting for you to produce anything I ever said labelling Trump as committing treason.
Pigs in a blanket, fry ’em like bacon. Any Democrat who supports BLM, support terrorism. Your side commits shootings, my side plots? Which one is worse? Plotting or committing? That might be too difficult for you to comprehend.
You still here? I thought I told you to fuck off.
Very well…
Find me one prominent Dem, one voice that mattered who was advocating shootings, who was advocating rioting, etc. Find one. You’re not gonna be able to, by the way. Sure, there’s some fringe voices who said all kinds of stupid things, but none of them were the President of the fuckin’ United States! You think it’s appropriate for the President to use his bully pulpit to advocate and stoke violence? To repeatedly retweet violent conspiracy theorists? Yep… There’s that bottomless well of excuses for ya.
But even if I buy your line of BS: Plotting is ALSO wrong, dumbass. Look it up: conspiracy is a crime; solicitation is a crime; attempting a crime is a crime. In fact, the penalty for plotting a crime is the usually the same as if you actually committed it. So get over this idea that your side has clean hands because “well, we didn’t follow through;” the argument is not legally or morally justified.
John, you seem to read English. Maybe you just don’t comprehend it? When I said that plotters should be punished, what does that mean?
Your knowledge of law is light weight despite trying to use legal terms. The punishment for plotting is far less than actually carrying something out because the action of a plot is worse than the plot itself. Take that leftist magnet away from your moral compass. I would much rather have somebody plot to murder somebody than for the person to carry it out. If you could ask them, the dead person would also say that they’d prefer a plot to death.
First off, fuck off. I’ve been a lawyer for over 20 years. Did criminal prosecution. Criminal defense. Juvenile and family stuff. Some insurance defense and municipal government work. The grading of an inchoate offense is usually the same as the underlying offense being attempted/solicited/conspired and the guidelines for the sentence are usually the same.
Second off, it doesn’t fucking matter whether one is worse than the other. You fundamental rationales of your argument is that being worried about a Trump coup is fearmongering because he won’t do it, it’s only talk, it’s not doing any harm, and Democrats are worse because a lunatic once shot up a Congressional softball game. All of the rationales are complete BS. When you’re pressed to explain how you know Trump won’t follow through, you deflect. When you’re pressed to explain how inciting violence or degrading public confidence and trust isn’t harmful, you deflect again. When it’s pointed out that plotting something criminal is also a serious crime, you respond with a non-sequitur and espouse BS legal advice.
Bottomless well of excuses. What’s it gonna take to get you cultists to stop carrying water for the fatass conman? Obama couldn’t use dijon mustard with Fox News going apeshit and you all are just handwaving this post-election shitshow away? Fuck the fuck off with that. If there were any justice in the world, your political opinions should count for shit from now on and I hope the GOP realizes that maybe stoking up an idiot fanbase and getting them to believe their own BS all the time wasn’t the best long-term strategy.
Dave here,until fox news jumps off trumps band wagon there will be no CHANGE!!
You got that ass-backwards.
Dear traitor,
Clearly, evidence that can be dismissed as long as a lawyer can argue like Lucifer is not then an Real evidence to what is going on.
You know reporters like this are probably Asian secret Service And/or are for communist Party in the US and people just think it’s truth cause he reported it. Bwahahaha
What a crock of bull poop. When I can see with my own eyes Videos revealing the truth…I can only believe this reporter is a spie.